Why I've stopped playing.

[Boscoe]

I've enjoyed this game much, but with the latest patches the performance is so abysmal that even with a threadripper CPU and an RTX 3070 I seldom get more than an effective 15 fps. Oh, it says 90+ FPS sometimes as much as 200+ but the near constant freezes and stuttering are so bad it's just not playable. This game needs serious optimization.

Flying. For context, I was USAF with over 5000 hours in high performance jets (most of my career flying a Viper (Block 15 thru 25 and a handful of hours in the 30 Big Mouth). I hold a PPL in GA, both SE and ME and instrument rated with over 10,000 hours combined in various single and multi engine aircraft.

I also volunteer with the Commemorative Air Force and have flown the P-51, P-63, T-6, Yak-18, a restored Kate B5N Torpedo bomber and T6 converted into a A6M2 (the infamous Zero). I flew with the Tora, Tora, Tora group performing in airshows in Midland, Dallas, Oshkosh and countless small airfields across the south. I lost 6 good friends at the Dallas air show year flying when the same P-63 I've flown before collided with the Texas Raiders B-17. I was flying one of the other P-51s in formation when the accident occurred.

To say I know a thing or two about flying would be an understatement. In short, the "realistic mode" flying in this game is what I think an 11 year old imagines flying to be like. The "unrealistic" mode sucks but it's a far more accurate than whatever abomination the realistic mode thinks it's doing. I have over 2000 in an actual P-51 and have never had one want to roll left while in a right turn and applying right rudder. The ungodly tendency to roll inverted with the control inputs given is not something I ever experienced flying a Mustang and thats even one fully loaded with fuel with a bad CG and squirrelly aerodynamics.

I know it's not a flight sim but I would expect it to behave better than something pre-MS Flight sim 1990.

I think the major flaw is that this seems to be coded in Unity and poorly at that. It's a great concept and a fun game being ruined by ill thought and tested patches and clearly some short cuts taken (others have pointed out the AI problem). I will try it again after some patches but as of the last few patches its just more frustrating to play than enjoyable.

[Marco Amadei [Corvostudio]]

Hello,

About the optimization issue, if you are playing on a laptop make sure to launch the game with your main GPU and trough Steam as it appears that the game on some laptops launches with integrated GPUs instead when launched from outside Steam.

Consider the game for me rearely gets below 90FPS with high settings and I develop and test the game on a GTX 1060ti. Not even Nintendo Switch version drops as low as 15FPS.
Also I didn't hear specific issues with performance on the Discord server, expecially not after recent updates so it is worthy to make sure it's just not a launch setup on your end.

About flying controls, surely flying is not the main feature of the game and it's meant to be simplified to be easily accessible to everyone, however consider that there are multiple realistic controls settings that you can change, like the reset speed of the steering bar, or you can swap to control the plane only with keyboard also rebinding the keys.

Thank you for the feedback, hope future updates will make the gameplay feel a bit better for you.

Marco

[Boscoe]

Not on a laptop. Desktop. AMD Ryzen 3990X 64 core Threadripper and an RTX 3070. 32 Gig of main memory and the game loaded onto an M2 drive. Hardware isn't the problem. Until recently, I had over 100 hours playing and have completed all the available campaigns including DLC so I'm not a newbie to the game just complaining because I don't know how to play. I've lowered all the graphic settings, turned off any AA or ansio, post-processing and lowered textures all to no avail. I've made no hardware changes and other than updating GeForce drivers to the latest nothing else that should affect the game this much.

It's not that my FPS drops to 15. It's that there are so many pauses, stutters and outright freezes the effective rate is essentially 15 or less fps. It used to be I'd experience a 250ms to 500ms pause when a squad or vehicle spawned in--not uncommon for a Unity engine game. Now it is near constant pauses, stutters and freezes lasting 2-3 seconds each and hitting every 5-10 seconds. Sure when the screen is frozen FPS can hit 200+ but that is useless if it's stuck on one frame. When it unfreezes I'm usually dead or I've run 200 meters passed where I was trying to get to--then freeze again. This occurs with AI and Difficulty set at normal. If I set Difficulty at High it's slightly worse but so close that might be a false impression. If I set Max AI and Difficulty to Normal the pauses start right after spawning in and last 10 seconds or longer. Unfreezes for perhaps 2 seconds then freezes again.

Over the last 3 or 4 minor patches it's gotten so bad the game is essentially non-playable. For comparison, I can play Hell Let Loose (another WW2 game) on 5120x1440 and experience a smooth 100+ framerate and its graphics are arguably more intense on the hardware. I seldom, if ever, get pauses.

I get what you are saying about the flying options (and agreed it's not the main focus) but you simplistic settings are closer to reality than the complex ones. Honestly, it's like it's coded by someone who thinks planes behave this way but have never even flown a plane before. Ex: right rudder would induce a right yaw AND a right roll, it should also pitch the nose down a bit to the right due to prop torque. At least in the P-51 it induces a flat yaw and an almost opposite left roll and pitch up--exact opposite of what it should be. I'd just ditch the "realistic" and keep the simplistic controls to stay more with the "ease of access" concept.

Not saying this just to complain. I genuinely enjoy the game, but something is wrong. I suspect something is not playing right in the multi-threading. Memory use is well below being an issue so it seems relegated to the CPU hence why I suspect the threading issue. Maybe it doesn't like 64 cores? Honestly trying to provide feedback you can use to help debug.

[Marco Amadei [Corvostudio]]

Yeah this is definetly not the average expected performance of the game (again I have a very low setup where i develop and test, and the game runs on extremly low end hardwares but we don't get issues like what you described), please provide me with some log files so i can investigate your issue. You can send the log files checking this guide: https://www.corvostudio.it/support.html

You could also try reinstalling the game in the meantime.
Btw the updates released in the last weeks couldn't cause the freezing issue you describe because they didn't touch aspects that could impact it.

The issue about the stuttering from the post from 2022 that you commented is a different thing and it was something about the world doesn't look like rotating very smooth when using gamepad, not an FPS drop issue or stuttering/freezes that pauses the game, but in any case it was fixed a long time ago.

[Bedefee]

Hi Boscoe,

I have a 5800x3d and a 3070 and play on 1440 with all graphics settings at max. After the update I was having similar issues but resolved it by turning the render terrain and view distance down from max a bit. It resolved my problem and honestly can't tell a difference in how the game looks. Don't know if this will help you, but just in case.

[Urk_da_WAAAGH!]

i5-7400, gtx 1660, game runs smooth without random freezes on the highest graphical settings and max bots.

I have reasons to think the problem is your machine.

[Boscoe]

Urk,

That was my first thought except I have no other issues with other software, some with more intense graphics. Shoot, had no real issues until the last couple of months. I've tried the render distance before but I can try that again. I'll try and capture vid as well.

[oosw]

About realistic airplane control, "realistic" refers to the control method rather than physics. In the new method you have full control over three axes (roll, pitch and yaw) whereas the original "simple" method you had only two. Probably it might make more sense to you if it's called like "advanced airplane control" instead.
Because ER2 still doesn't have official support of flight stick, I don't know if it will be enjoyable if realistic physics is introduced now. Plus, though I'm personally interested in the idea, I'm not sure if the main player base will find it fun to have a detailed physics of flight simulator quality.

[Marco Amadei [Corvostudio]]

Originally posted by Boscoe:

Urk,

That was my first thought except I have no other issues with other software, some with more intense graphics. Shoot, had no real issues until the last couple of months. I've tried the render distance before but I can try that again. I'll try and capture vid as well.

Hello again,
Could you switch to BETA version and send me your log files? (following this simple guide https://www.corvostudio.it/support.html)
This would be very helpful to track down and fix your issue.
By the way, would you describe it as the game going into a "slow motion" mode?

[Atermi]

Originally posted by Boscoe:

Honestly, it's like it's coded by someone who thinks planes behave this way but have never even flown a plane before.

I imagine the tank controls were also done by someone who never rode a Pz38t before

[ZloVeshiy PartiZaN]

This is also partly possible because of the driver. And it's better to try different renderers (vulkan, dh11). What else did I notice. If you subscribe to more than 50 mods of the workshop, it also unfortunately reduces performance a little and adds more stuters. Friezes for 3 seconds were rare.

[Zof]

Originally posted by Atermi:

Originally posted by Boscoe:

Honestly, it's like it's coded by someone who thinks planes behave this way but have never even flown a plane before.

I imagine the tank controls were also done by someone who never rode a Pz38t before

Yeah I know....Every weapon, plane, tank, ammunition type and uniform should have been personally tested, stripped down and rebuilt.....otherwise how can we really take this thing seriously?

[Ruckman_Void]

Originally posted by Atermi:

Originally posted by Boscoe:

Honestly, it's like it's coded by someone who thinks planes behave this way but have never even flown a plane before.

I imagine the tank controls were also done by someone who never rode a Pz38t before

And the dying animations look like they are done by someone who has never even died before! Sheesh!

;)

[nephilimnexus]

Don't forget the supermodel girlfriend who lives in Canada.

[Crohns Racing]

Runs perfectly fine on my machine maxed out, with worse specs.

[Mandalore]

I built my PC in 2017 and I run this game at a good frame rate. But I agree with the stuttering. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, it's like the game runs perfectly fine but every 2-5 mins it will just completely freeze for 2-3 seconds. Very annoying immersion breaking.

As for flying. The controls do seem strange, but it seems like it's built for dive bombing. Definitely room for improvement in the plane controls. But I've never seen any other game do combined arms infantry, tanks and aircraft and actually have it work. Battlefield tried but the AI is clueless.

Also OP, as for your "creds" being a real pilot. No one cares. Top Gun in a lame movie. Actual pilots are lame. If you are sitting down during your job, you have a lame job. Chair force sucks.